How Pizza Tycoon Simulates Traffic On A 25 MHz CPU
Hackaday • • technology
Key Points:
- The 1994 DOS game Pizza Tycoon (Pizza Connection in Europe) is being modernized through an open source engine called Pizza Legacy, developed by [cowomaly].
- To understand the original car animation on limited hardware (25 MHz 386 CPU), [cowomaly] analyzed the game's assembly code.
- The original animation algorithm used a grid of one-way road tiles with cars choosing directions at crossings, avoiding consecutive turns in the same direction to prevent looping.
- Collision detection involved checking other cars and pausing movement for 10 ticks if blocked, unintentionally creating brief traffic jams that enhanced realism.
- Despite minor bugs and limitations, the algorithm produced natural car movement similar to that seen in other simulation games like Sim City.
